Sometimes it's hard not to be embarrassed that I'm American. The young, promising melting pot that humbly braved all odds to establish itself as a superpower no longer completely impresses me. Despite our economic and military supremacy, we lack a certain integrity. Arrogantly, our country neglects failures and mistakes and we, as citizens, tend to ignore them. Accepting State Department reports and refusing to explore issues, it is only when knowledge falls into our laps that we question our government's actions.
As an intern for the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights this summer, I learned about human rights violations throughout the world. Countries such as China, the former Yugoslavia and Liberia are nations where the definition of humanity and treatment as such are muddled by political agendas and greed. Enter America, the refuge for the victims of tyranny and strife. But despite our professed creed, the U.S. is quickly enacting legislation to close the door on refugees.
In April 1997, Congress passed a bill calling for the "expedited removal" of all political asylum applicants who had not filed within one year of arrival in the U.S. Without articulating the details, suffice it to say that these regulations severely impede needy individuals in their quest for asylum and seem to be an indication of what lies ahead. We should keep in mind that the government awards political asylum to only 6,000 to 7,000 individuals per year. These people are not the source of our mass legal and illegal immigration problem. What is more troubling, though, is that the current policy calls for asylum applicants who were not able to acquire valid travel documents, as is almost always the case for those fleeing persecutory or war-torn countries, to be handcuffed at airports and taken to nearby detention center warehouses. These detention centers exist without much publicity and very little government regulation. I would have never known they existed had I not been involved with an organization that deals with their detainees.
Individuals who have never committed a crime are taken there, fed meagerly and forbidden exercise or fresh air. They have often suffered through deaths of loved ones, horrifying atrocities and their own personal torture. They come for respite and are incarcerated as a result.
When talking to these people, trying to encourage them that there were some people here that intended to help them, I began to feel pangs of embarrassment. I've got my suit and my briefcase, but, to some extant, as an American, I feel like a fraud. This feeling was only increased by the disparity between hopeful stories these people had heard and the reality of American policy.
The ill treatment these people receive may seem unsavory to someone who once believed in the purity of our nation and its commitment to international justice, but given our track record, it would be naive to expect otherwise. Another internship opportunity landed me and a couple of friends in Nicaragua. With the recent Clinton investigation and the public discourse about presidential credulity, I am reminded of President Reagan's involvement in the Iran-Contra affair in which we dealt arms to peace-loving Iran to support the contras fighting the "communist" Sandanistas in Nicaragua.
After living with a Sandinista family who had a son killed by American troops, I can attest that they are kind-hearted people and not cold, calculating communists with the intention of joining the Soviet empire in taking over the world. In fact, the Soviet Union only began giving aid to the Sandinistas after the U.S. embargo left millions of innocent people starving. The label "communist" was never their own.
The Sandinistas came to power after the overthrow of the tyrannical Samosa regime. They attempted to convert the money and wealth held by the former dictatorship in a way that would benefit the people of Nicaragua. Estates that had once been oases of ridiculous wealth amid rampant poverty were transformed into schools and art centers. America would have none of this.
In fact, it did everything it could to secure the defeat of the Sandinistas, including educate contra leaders on the art of torture. So mothers like my host, Dona Isabella Lopez, end up losing a son, and the country continues to suffer. Somehow she found it in her heart to look past the grief inflicted upon her by my country and welcomed me into her home, a gesture I found entirely un-American.
I am not embarrassed to be an American because we are worse than any other country, but because we erect the Statue of Liberty and pretend to believe in the ideals she symbolizes.
We peddle ourselves as the champions of justice and fair play, when we are only incredibly successful advocates of our own agenda. If this is okay with you, fine. But we should call things what they are, and develop our opinions from there. It is not necessarily our "duty" to be international benefactors, but we should strive to be honest, if only to ourselves.
